Farrakhan's Unsavory Pal

It's Not U.n. But Saddam Hussein Who Is Starving Iraqis

February 27, 1996|By Tom Teepen, Cox News Service

Louis Farrakhan capped his recent Scum of the Earth tour with a fawning visit to Iraq's tough-love father-in-law, Saddam Hussein, who has gassed scores of thousands of Iraqis just for show, killed thousands suspected of even the mildest political dissent and is now starving the ones who are left.

Farrakhan said the current suffering is all the fault of the United Nations economic sanctions against Iraq - and, of course, especially the fault of the United States, source of all evil in the world.

Farrakhan had prepared himself for this insight by twice visiting Gen. Sani Abacha, the murderous tyrant of Nigeria, laughing it up with the terrorist troika that runs what is left of Sudan, joining Iran's ayatollahs in condemning America and, in Libya, earning a promise of $1 billion from dictator Moammar Gadhafi to influence black Americans about something or the other, though it is not at all clear African-Americans wish to be influenced by Gadhafi about anything.

The sanctions ARE causing grave hardship in Iraq. Iraqis, children particularly, are malnourished. The ill are dying for want of medicines.

But within days of Farrakhan's testimonial, Iraq once again refused a U.N. offer of targeted relief.

It is not the United Nations but Hussein who is starving Iraqis. Beating even his own past cruelty to his people, Hussein has now taken Iraq's whole population hostage to his politics.

The United Nations has kept the sanctions screwed down on Iraq until Hussein lives up to the conditions he had agreed to in exchange for being allowed to get out of the Persian Gulf war with his rear end still attached.

Within days of Farrakhan's testimonial, Iraq once again refused a U.N. offer of relief.

He has been especially dodgy about agreements meant to prevent him from developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Iraq refused for a year even to discuss a U.N. plan that would allow it to sell $2 billion in oil for humanitarian uses. Hussein rejected the U.N. demand for oversight that would assure the world body the money is used to ease suffering, not to shore up the military.

Now, with discussions finally under way, Iraq is balking at a requirement that at least $150 million be set aside to help Iraqi Kurds.

Hussein throughout the years has made the Kurds a special target of his military and his political police. If his policy toward them is any different from genocide, it is only a little different.

Hussein's game in all this is to let his people reach such destitution that a revolted world will lift the sanctions and permit him to get away with whatever nastiness it is that he has been covering up all this time.

Meanwhile, of course, the military has suffered no short rations, and you may be assured the Iraqi elite are living very nicely, thank you. Indeed, since the Persian Gulf War, Hussein has seen to the construction of more than $1 billion in swank, new palaces and resorts for the privileged.

Nor is it anywhere recorded that Farrakhan was feted less than well in Baghdad, or that he passed up any meals to donate the food to the hungry.

Louis is having a little trouble getting the hang of this humanitarian thing.